Snark Summer
by friendlyquark
Summary: Set in the Sub Rosa universe. Minuet, her baby sister Fortina, and Draco Malfoy spend the summer with Professer Snape. A quiet interlude between battles.
1. The Cottage by the Sea

Chapter 1 – The Cottage by the Sea

There was that moment when he opened the door of the cottage and she looked into the closed face when she wondered if this had been a good idea. His hair -- long, black, with an oily sheen to it -- hung down and partially obscured his features, his eyes so dark a brown that they seemed black. She was frozen for an instant, wondering if she should have stayed home and then there was a twitching of the thin lips, a glimmer of warmth in the depths of the eyes and she knew she had made the right choice.

He stepped back without uttering a word, opening the weathered wooden door for them. He was framed for a moment in the doorway, a tall lean figure in ebony whorls of fabric, his outline obscured by the heavy layers he wore. He moved soundlessly, something she had noted many times but which never failed to unnerve her. She tugged Fortina after her into the room.

The cottage was one of those charming, thoroughly English structures that seemed completely at odds with her inner image of Professor Severus Snape. They entered a hallway, doors leading off from either side and Minuet carefully removed her sister's coat and hung it on a large wooden coat rack that bent down to receive the garment in deference to her diminutive stature. The whitewashed wood paneling and clean-scrubbed slate floor with rag rugs scattered was again the antithesis of Professor Snape. He looked like a black crow that had found roost in the wrong nest here.

Tina was hiding behind her; a glance over Min's shoulder revealed a pale face with eyes gone huge and dark from fear. Min sighed and dragged her baby sister after Professor Snape. He strode down the hallway, still utterly silent. 

They followed him into an old-fashioned kitchen with a plain pine table and chairs, a gleaming nickel stove and chintz-patterned cushions and tablecloths. Shelves with teapots and chipped china, a river stone fireplace with an iron hob, heavy wood rafters and windows with wavy glass that opened onto the garden made it a charming environment, better suited to a plump English matron than the dour Potions Master.

"Are you hungry?" His voice had the satin quality that she admired so much in the classroom, but he spoke with an uneasiness that made him sound abrupt. Minuet shook her head, felt Tina repeat her gesture from her hiding place behind her, and wondered if he had ever had guests here before. Then it occurred to her to wonder if he had ever had guests anywhere before.

"Some tea would be lovely though, if it isn't too much trouble." Min was unsure of herself here in this unfamiliar environment. She had always interacted with him as her head of House, her professor; now he, along with her mother, was her guardian. She wasn't sure of how the dynamic would work, with this new relationship.

"Tea, yes, of course." He nodded and looked strangely relieved, as if a task was just what he required. It dawned on her that he was feeling as out of kilter as she was, so she smiled at him encouragingly and shoved Tina into a chair before being seated herself.

Tina had a somewhat trembling lower lip and Min sighed. Her baby sister had been astonishingly fragile of late and prone to tears. It wasn't that Min wasn't sympathetic -- they had, after all, lost both father and home in one fell swoop -- she just couldn't see that tears were going to solve anything. But Minuet was just turned fifteen and Fortina was just turned seven; the age difference was quite substantial. 

Professor Snape took a copper kettle, gleaming and polished to a high shine, down from a shelf and filled it with water from the tap. He stepped over to the old fashioned fireplace and had it lit in a trice with a dexterous gesture. Minuet filed that information away for later thought. His speech to the first years about 'foolish wand-waving' had stuck with her and she had wondered whether his disdain was due to a lack of proficiency. Obviously not.

He took a brightly patterned china pot down, its large pansy print looking so very odd in his pale hand, and a simple warming charm prepared it for use. With the same care and intensity with which he prepared a potion, he scooped tea from a tin canister and set it aside for the water to boil. Teacups next, in a mismatched set of clashing colors and various flowers. Minuet received a cabbage rose cup with a curlicue handle and a scalloped saucer. Tina received a stoneware mug with lavender sprays and a simple saucer with a rim of purple that matched the flower's shade.

The kettle came to a boil and Professor Snape levitated it to the china teapot and poured it, his aim steady and his wandwork impeccable. Even Flitwick would have no complaints, Minuet thought with admiration for the casually displayed skill. Cream and sugar were produced in their own eccentric china and Professor Snape settled in the third chair and poured for them.

"I hope this meets with your approval, Miss Ravagienne." He said with a raised eyebrow.

"It's quite perfect, Professor Snape." She grinned at him, suddenly amused by their formality. It was as out-of-place in this bright cheery kitchen as he was. "You may call me Minuet, seeing as how school is out." His lips were tugged upwards in that small smile she had come to recognize.

"You may call me Severus, I suppose, though only 'til class begins again." He warned, but his eyes had lightened.

"Uncle Severus, may I have more tea?" Tina's almost whispered question made him startle in his seat and he quickly poured more tea into her cup. It was mostly cream with a little tea, but it made Tina feel grown-up to drink it.

Minuet was amused by the almost shy way that Uncle Severus glanced at Tina, as if he were afraid she might bite, and yet he managed to still look dark and forbidding. 

"Dinner will be at seven; until then you can go down to the beach, read in the library or play in the garden, whatever you choose." He announced, with the eyebrows lowered. His voice had that commanding quality that rolled over you and pinned you down. It was the Head of House voice, the one that brooked no disobedience. "You will be punctual to meals and not disturb me for anything less than a threat to life and limb while I am in the lab, is that clear?" The two girls nodded in tandem.

"We understand, Uncle Severus." Tina added for good measure.

"Very well, I am going to the lab. Should an emergency arise, it is down the steps next to the front hall. Amuse yourselves." He waved a hand and they pushed back their chairs and headed off to explore the house.


	2. The Laboratory

Chapter 2 – The Laboratory

Severus watched the two little girls scurry off and cleared the table with a few deft swishes of his wand. Minuet's request to stay with him this summer had come as a surprise. He couldn't imagine a little girl wanting his company rather than fleeing it, especially one of his students. Weren't they supposed to live in terror of him? He must have failed somewhere, given them the idea that he actually cared.

He snorted at the thought; he universally despised the student body, though he despised the Slytherins slightly less than the other houses. He liked Draco, if he were being honest with himself, and felt compassion and sympathy for Pansy. His mind twitched away from that thought. Pansy had been taken into protective custody by the Ministry; she was a ward of the state and was hidden from even him -- probably especially from him.

He glanced around the kitchen, making sure everything was in perfect order. He despised an untidy workspace and the kitchen fell into that category for him. 

He remembered his grandmother puttering about in this room: the smell of her – lavender and onions - the way she had hummed as she worked, the round face with bright emerald green eyes twinkling, the white hair pulled back into a bun, wisps of hair falling everywhere. Her death had been the last blow. The horrible sense of solitude that had eaten him alive, as he had stood there silent and dry-eyed at her funeral and watched as his father had sneered at the old woman's memory, had been the last tie that had been cut setting him adrift for Voldemort to catch and draw in.

He had changed nothing in the room since her death, carefully mending the china and linens, preserving the place exactly as it had been in his childhood; his own refuge from his parents and the world.

He swept quickly from the room, alarmed at the maudlin direction his thoughts were taking. Down the stairs and through the root cellar where the potatoes, vegetables and other dry stores were kept, to an iron banded door at the end.

Grandfather, a Potions Master of some renown himself, had set up this lab. He pushed through the door, ignoring the creaking of the hinges and gazed upon his tiny kingdom with pride. It was an oblong room with stone counters that ran the length of two walls, with sinks set into them. Shelves of ingredients on long wooden planks hung above the counters and the center of the room was dominated by the Work. It was not just the day-to-day efforts of the brewer of potions here; it was the true aim of all brewers, the Work itself: Alchemy.

Bubbling retorts, alembics and tubes suspended in midair criss-crossing the table, a mortar and pestle, notebooks covered in the spidery handwriting of three generations of Snapes -- it was his idea of Heaven. Or it was once, before last year; before Her. 

His eyes burned in memory and he swallowed hard against the threatened tears. He had spent a week just grieving Her loss, writing Her letters that he didn't expect answers to and reminding himself that he had always been quite good at being alone.

It wasn't that he didn't believe Her when She said She loved him, it was just that he knew She would be far away now, in a place with lots of handsome available men and it was inevitable that She would forget him. She would find some charming, brilliant fellow with a handsome face and great job and he would receive the letter that started "Dear Severus" and ended with "I hope we can still be friends."

Memory supplied Her face and Her voice, but no memory was sufficient for him now. He ached for Her, burned for Her, and wept long into the night. It was sad to think that he wasn't sure which letter he dreaded more: the 'Dear Severus' or the 'We regret to inform you…" letter; the other stark possibility, considering where She was and what She did there.

Either thought was enough to give him sleepless nights and a propensity to break things. Everywhere but here, in this shrine to purification and the labor of the mind, for this place was sacrosanct.

He set to work, checking substances and adjusting temperatures with persnickety precision. His mind wrapped itself in the work; his body obeying with unconscious grace, creating the movements that were required.

"Uncle Severus?" a piping voice startled him and he turned, almost dropping his beaker. Fortina, her black hair in pigtails and her green dress covered in sand stood before him with her huge dark eyes looking up at him.

"Are you dying?" He asked severely and watched her eyes go round in fear.

"No. I'm hungry." He voice trailed off to a whisper at the look on his face and he sighed. The clock on the wall declared that six was the hour. He cleaned his tools and set them aside. A stasis spell kept everything from being ruined by the child's appetite.

"Very well. We are having ham." He informed her, as he turned away from the table.

"I don't like ham." She replied with an expression that involved her sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her nose.

"Do you like chicken?" He asked with some impatience.

"Yes." She responded with a happy nod.

"Then we shall have chicken." 

"Fried or baked?" She slipped her tiny warm hand into his large, cold one and looked up at him earnestly as though the question was of utmost importance.

"How would you prefer it?" He was learning this game, if slowly.

"I like fried." She informed him with decision. He gave her the eyebrow, but she simply clung harder to his hand and leaned against him in a winsome manner. He deduced that the entire effect of an adorable child slowly starving to death was most effective with the House Elves and an excellent way for her to charm adults. Against his will, he found himself charmed, but he fought it tooth and nail.

"Very well, we shall have fried chicken." He conceded and his reward was a brilliant gap-toothed smile. This was going to be a long summer.


	3. A Little Bit Routine

Chapter 3 – A Little Bit Routine

Minuet set the table with a feeling of peacefulness. For the last week, she, Tina and Uncle Severus had established a pattern. 

Breakfast of sleepy yawning faces with no talking allowed until Uncle Severus had drunk his coffee, followed by a leisurely stroll out the back door to the beach, where Tina and Min would run around playing and screaming, while Uncle Severus would sit on the porch reading as he kept an eye on them. 

Lunch would be a leisurely affair where they would interrogate Uncle Severus about his work and his life; the former questions he would answer easily, the latter, he would dodge. They would all descend to the laboratory after that and the girls would watch in fascination as he worked. 

Dinner would follow, then he would settle on the couch with the two little girls curled up beside him and read to them with his powerful voice until they were falling asleep and then he tucked them in for the night.

They lived in a strange solitary world far removed from Hogwarts. It was as if the empty beach that stretched on to infinity and the winding country road that had brought them here were all that existed; that after they had stepped into the cottage the rest of the world had simply faded away.

No owls came, no paper, no floo calls, nothing; a complete isolation that had started out as being strange and lonely but had become cherished and familiar. Minuet could dance around the kitchen as she set the table, humming, and know that she was unobserved. Severus had drawn a bath for Fortina and then retired to his own shower to clean up before breakfast. 

Minuet at fifteen had already learned most of the household spells and she was especially adept at kitchen magic. With a happy wave, she sent eggs into the cast iron pan to fry. Another wave and a muttered spell had the rasher of bacon cooking merrily. Bread drifted over to the fireplace to toast, beans were set to warm, and tomatoes were soon frying merrily in a pan next to the bacon. She twirled and set the plates to dancing towards the table and mugs were doing acrobatics on their way to being filled with tea.

"You'll make someone a good wife, Min." Came a familiar drawl from the doorway and she almost sent it all crashing down as her surprise caused her to lose concentration.

"Draco!" She shouted and as soon as everything was in place rushed into the seventeen-year-old's arms with a happy cry. She stepped back and looked him up and down with surprise. "What are you doing here?" She was amazed by the change in him in only a few weeks. Gone was the drab ensemble of school robes and in their place were tailored robes in black and silver with little entwined dragons racing around the hem.

He looked older, worldlier and very handsome. Min grinned up at him with a little sister's glee.

"Well, don't you look posh!" Draco rolled his eyes at her.

"Would you want me to be a disgrace to the Malfoy name?" He asked with a touch of bitterness hiding beneath the humor. 

"Certainly not!" She retorted in mock horror and he laughed but it was a soft sound, more sad than amused.

"Malfoy." Snape muttered in greeting as he swept towards the coffee pot. He was dressed in his usual black trousers, but he had dispensed with the frock coat after their first day. A black cotton shirt buttoned up against the early morning chill with a wooly black cardigan rendered him far less imposing. Tina clattered into the room, shoes still untied and clothes rumpled. Min groaned and began to set her to rights.

"Good morning, Sir. Thank you for the rescue, by the way. Mother's idea of a lovely trip terrifies me." He said it in an offhand way, but Min guessed it was rather close to the truth.

"Not at all, besides you are an adequate assistant in the lab and I do have work that needs to be done." Min smiled to herself; she had long ago learned that "adequate" in Uncle Severus' dictionary meant "excellent" in everyone else's.

She had Tina dressed and ordered and she turned back to the breakfast food. Everything had cooked to perfection and then stopped, so she served it up and set and extra place for Draco. They sat down -- the three children and the still rather bleary adult -- and tucked in.

"No, really, Min, you will make someone a good wife." Draco said with admiration as he ate her breakfast. She nodded at his compliment but felt obscurely insulted.

"Minuet has far more in her future than mere housewifery." Severus scolded. "She gets better grades than you do, Malfoy." Min perked up at that; yes, she knew whomever she married had better be willing to let her pursue her dreams.

"Sorry, didn't mean it like that." Draco was pink with embarrassment. It was, Min knew, quite hard sometimes to let go of pureblood preconceptions. 


	4. One Perfect Moment

Chapter 4 – One Perfect Moment

Severus watched as the three children ran along the beach. If Narcissa could see Draco now, tossing a screaming Tina into the shallow waves, his transfigured swimsuit soaked, his perfect hair mussed and his face red with laughter and exertion, she would faint.

Minuet was building a sand castle with the same tools Severus had used when he was a boy here. The tiny turrets and crenellated walls she pressed out and carefully placed, the sand soldiers who marched along the battlements, the little wooden drawbridge, all were reminders of the few happy moments of his childhood. He remembered Grandmother Agatha sitting on this porch watching him as he now watched these children.

His son was due to be born in August. He was still unsure about the future he would have with the baby. He wondered if someday he would be sitting here watching Orion and feeling the same sense of peace as he did now. Or would the child learn to hate him for bringing him into the world? 

Wind blew Minuet's hair into a trailing black banner and her purple bathing suit outlined a figure that told him she would soon be snatched up by some young man. He had watched it all for years: the scrawny, huddled, frightened eleven-year-olds coming into the Great Hall in a mass of nerves and then the gradual change to young men and women who stepped away from Hogwarts as bright confident adults. It made him feel old, it made him sad and it made him worry. 

When the final battle came, how many of the children he had taught would fall beneath his wand? Would he himself die looking into the eyes of a child he had comforted and cared for? He pulled his mind gently away and back to this moment, back to Tina shrieking and being chased by a laughing Draco. Back to the few perfect moments of childhood which were all he could give these children whom Voldemort had stripped of their innocent youth.

Severus stepped back and waited: the reaction was simple but spectacular. The alembic erupted in sparkling green flame and smoke. Minuet and Tina stared at it in open-mouthed wonder. Draco, who had seen the reaction a dozen times before, stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, a smirk on his face.

"Wow." Tina breathed in awe as glittering green sparks danced upwards. "Do it again, Uncle Severus!" she begged as the flames and sparks faded, bouncing with excitement. Severus gave her an indulgent smile and dribbled more arsenic into the alembic. Once more the flames and sparks dazzled the little girl and she reached for the arsenic with eager hands.

Nearly twenty years in a lab and as a teacher gave him a reaction speed beyond the norm and he snatched the vial from under her questing fingers.

"No!" He snapped and watched her face crumble into tears. He knelt before the child and gripped her shoulders. "Tina, arsenic is a deadly poison." The child clung to him and began sobbing heartbrokenly and he looked at Minuet in confusion. "Surely I wasn't quite so terrifying?" 

"No Uncle Severus, she's just been weepy since Da died." Minuet's voice was filled with a weary compassion that was far too mature for her fifteen years. How much of Tina's fragility had she been shouldering lately?

"Understandable." He bit off the rest of the thought. Understandable for a child whose father has been murdered, who has been spat on and mistreated, searched by Aurors and all the other horrors that this seven-year-old child had been put through.

Draco was watching with cold angry eyes, thinking no doubt of the Dark Lord and of how many lives had been destroyed by him. Lucius wrote regularly from Azkaban, but Draco would not tell him what was in his father's letters. Still, after one came, Draco would look pale and strained for some time afterwards.

He carried the little girl up the stairs and sat in one of the white pine kitchen chairs, pulling her onto his lap and letting her sob into his shirt. It was a broken-hearted sound that tore at his heart but he knew the best cure for grief was grieving; he certainly had enough experience at it.

Soon the sobs were receding and she lay against his chest, quiescent with only a few sniffles to indicate her continued awareness.

He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket in his pants and presented it to Fortina, who blew her nose noisily and wiped at her face. Minuet and Draco had remained downstairs. Draco was setting up for the brewing they would be doing today and Minuet was helping him, no doubt; cowardly children abandoning him to deal with the grieving little girl. Not that he was inexperienced at this, but he still didn't find it a task he relished.

"Better?" He asked her, retrieving his sodden handkerchief. A quick flick of the fabric and the Soil-Away Charm was activated. He tucked the now clean and dry handkerchief into his pocket again and bent his attention to Fortina.

"Yes, Uncle Severus." She nodded. "I'm sorry for being a bother." She mumbled, obviously expecting a reprimand. He must remember to disembowel his father at the earliest possible moment.

"You are not a bother, Tina." He retorted, imagining his father in Lucius' dungeons with a warm feeling of joy.

"Lord Snape says…" She began with the lip starting to tremble.

"Tina, my father is not an authority that you should ever quote." 'Lord Snape,' he scoffed mentally; pretentious prick. "In fact, my father is not very good at emotional situations." That sentence could go into the Magical Book of World Records as the biggest understatement of the century. However, Tina looked up at him with shining eyes and choked off his air with a fierce hug. He saved himself by removing her from his lap and setting her on her feet. "Ready to go back?" 

"Yes, Uncle Severus." She slipped a hand into his and leaned against his leg. He was not sure that he was the best guardian for a little girl but he seemed to be avoiding causing any major traumas in the child's fragile psyche. That was encouraging.

He had a momentary flash of Kathryn -- a memory of Her curled up in a chair with Her stocking feet on his lap as She read and the look in Her eyes as She glanced at him. Perhaps there was hope that he wasn't a complete monster.


	5. Not Forgotten

Chapter 5 – Not Forgotten

Minuet jumped when she heard the tapping on the window. They hadn't received an owl in the last month at all and not even Narcissa had written to Draco in the two weeks he had been here with them. Therefore the fact that there was now a rather large and forbidding looking eagle owl staring at her through the kitchen window came as a bit of a shock. 

She opened the window and let him in, reaching for some toast edges from breakfast to feed him as she untied the loop that held the mail to his leg. She opened the pouch to discover a letter from her mother, one from Fauna, one from Lillith for Draco, another from Tina's best friend Hattie, and a large envelope, very heavy, addressed to Professor Snape from America.

"Uncle Severus, you've got a package from America!" She called cheerfully. She was rewarded with the clattering of his boots as he hastened up the stairs.

He snatched the envelope from her grasp and tore it open with haste. A spill of letters fell out onto the table, all addressed with Professor Leblanc's untidy scrawl. Minuet caught the look of transparent joy on his face before he closed it down and frowned. She thought the frown was rather half-hearted and not up to his usual standards. 

"Looks like they collect her posts and send them all at once." He muttered, looking rather irked by that practice. He sorted through the letters and tossed one to Minuet. "It looks as though she has written to you." He pulled out another envelope. "She also seems to have written to Draco."

Draco appeared as though his name summoned him and picked up his letter with a smirk.

"So she hasn't forgotten about us." Draco murmured with a sideways glance at Uncle Severus. Minuet grinned at him and pulled open her own letter. The others could wait; she wanted to know what Professor Leblanc had to say.

Uncle Severus scooped up his pile and retreated from the room with a relaxed air that had been conspicuously absent of late. It occurred to Min that he must have been missing her an awful lot and that some of his melancholy could be put down to that.

She flopped into the kitchen chair and started to read.

Dear Miss Ravagienne,

First off, America is hot and noisy. I got used to cool, quiet Scotland and getting used to big cities again is harder than I had thought it would be. 

Secondly, how are you? I am fine, though a bit harried at the moment. Getting myself caught up on the backlog of work has been exasperating. It's not that everyone here at work is an idiot, in fact most of my co-workers are scarily competent; it's just that the few who aren't have a rather large impact on the rest of us.

I miss you a great deal. I enjoyed our lessons and I find myself lonely for Hogwarts and for all of you. How is Professor Snape? I hope you are taking very good care of him -- he's quite hopeless at it himself, you know. Perhaps you can all come to Lieu D'Asile for Christmas again and we can see each other then. Please write me back, I am hungry for news from across the pond.

Regards, 

Kathryn Leblanc

Minuet read the letter over again, picking out the things that weren't said. "Harried" probably meant "in terrible amounts of danger" in Agent Speak. "Take care of Snape" translated into "I love the man and don't want him to die while I am away." Minuet was both flattered at the compliment and horrified by the responsibility. If Voldemort showed up on the doorstep, what was she supposed to do about it? She also figured that "We can see each other for Christmas" meant "They wouldn't let me leave the country." 

Minuet sighed and shook her head. She hoped the rest of her letters were straightforward and more cheering.


	6. Another Visitor

Chapter 6 – Another Visitor

Each letter was dated so he took a moment to open them one by one and set them into order. Kathryn had written almost every day of the last month; the MSA had gathered them up and sent them all in one batch, something that irritated Severus no end. Firstly, he was annoyed by the month of thinking she had forgotten him that a few timely letters could have prevented. Secondly, he was concerned that his letters to her had received the same treatment. Had Kathryn spent a month wondering whether he still cared for her? 

The first letters were romantic, passionate and warming. She spoke to him in the letters in a way she had never done in person. He knew his own letters had been much the same. There was a freedom in writing, in putting words down on paper and rearranging them, studying them, playing with them, that wasn't there in speech. 

Later missives were chattier and he could feel her thinking about how much to tell him in every line. Whatever she was doing was dangerous and time-consuming, he could tell that from the handwriting alone. Her exhaustion was in the scrawled words and the residue of a legibility charm; her danger was in the careful choice of words, where a hastily scribbled sentence would suddenly become perfectly penned for a few words and then degenerate once again. 

He picked out words and phrases and put together an idea of her state of being. He found his heart leaping at familiar turns of phrase, at the amused, dry tones that were so uniquely hers. He was only halfway through the pile when he heard Minuet rattling about in the kitchen. He looked up and realized that Draco was sitting on the couch near him, watching him with a wry half smile.

"So how is the lovely Professor?" Draco asked with a mischievous look.

"Quite well." Severus raised a quelling eyebrow.

"You look rather fondly affectionate when reading her letters." Draco teased.

"Then I will be certain not to read them in front of the Dark Lord." Severus reminded the younger man. Draco's face stilled and he nodded abruptly. "How is Miss Leblanc?" He asked and watched as Draco's face lit up.

"Lilly is great. She graduated top of her class, of course." Draco added proudly.

"She is not as much of a dunderhead as some." Severus granted and Draco rolled his eyes. 

"You know it's far too late with us." Draco admonished.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Severus rose from his chair and tucked the letters into his desk cubbyholes. 

"Min, Tina and I have seen through you. Hell, even Granger has seen through you. You aren't an evil old bat and we all know it." Draco crossed his arms and glared at Severus with an expression reminiscent of Molly Weasley at her most disapproving. The comparison made Severus want to laugh.

"You are a presumptuous brat, Mr. Malfoy." Severus replied with a tiny smile. The brat threw his hands up and stomped from the room.

"You're not fooling us, you know!" Draco tossed back over his shoulder and Severus did laugh then. Alone in the empty room, he gave free reign to his joy. Kathryn loved him and she hadn't forgotten him. 

When he came downstairs the next morning he found that they had another visitor to breakfast. Minerva McGonagall, in white blouse and tartan skirt, hair braided and coiled around her head, sat at the table sipping tea and being stared at by a circle of wary children. Minuet and Draco were looking at her as though they were expecting detention at any moment. Tina was staring at her as though she expected to be eaten.

"Morning, Minnie." Severus ground out and went for his coffee with single-minded tenacity.

"Morning, Severus." She replied with a small nod.

"Terrifying the children are you?" He sat down and sipped his coffee, feeling his brain functions start and jerk back into motion.

"Not a bit, they seem naturally timid." She sipped her tea and her lips twitched. Draco looked at her suspiciously.

"You two are friends?" He asked dubiously, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed.

"The very best friends." Severus muttered and Minerva chortled.

"Ach, lad, how tha' must hae cost ya!" Her head rocked back with her laughter and she nearly spilled her tea. The children gaped at her display of mirth.

"Speak English woman." He snarled, but the children knew him too well to be fooled and now they had seen the truth behind another myth: the vaunted rivalry between himself and Minerva.

"Now you lot must keep the secret when you go back to Hogwarts. How are we to keep you children in line if we can't play at being enemies?" Minerva's chuckle and the way her eyes crinkled with good humor finished off the last vestiges of discomfort the children felt in her presence.

"You really had us fooled, Ma'am." Draco was watching her with something like resentment building up.

"Mr. Malfoy, neither Severus nor myself are the easiest people to get close to, but as Heads of House our charges have to be able and willing to trust us." Minerva pointed out to them.

"Minerva drives my Slytherins to me and I drive her Gryffindors to her." Severus admitted with a shrug. The kids looked back and forth between them with amused respect.

"That's so sneaky!" Minuet burst out in an admiring tone and Minerva laughed again and held out a now-empty teacup to Minuet to be refilled.

"Thank you, Miss Ravagienne." Minerva bowed her head to acknowledge the compliment and Minuet poured her tea with a dimpled smile. "I may be a Gryffindor and not up to the standards of sneaky expected of a Slytherin, but I like to think myself capable of occasionally surprising people."

"Count us surprised, Professor, very surprised." Draco chuckled and looked up at Minerva with new respect. Another battle waged and won, thought Severus with a certain satisfaction. Draco would never make the mistake of thinking that all Gryffindors were bad liars again.


	7. The End of the Matter

Chapter 7 – The End of the Matter

Minuet had pleaded to stay the rest of the summer, but Uncle Severus had been adamant that they leave August first. So the night before they were due to leave she had made a special diner and set the dining room table.

Draco had left a few days before and Professor McGonagall had visited only once more, she was staying with her sister in Cornwall and had apparated over for dinner one night. Minuet was enjoying the time alone with just the three of them. 

Severus Snape was nothing like Min's father. He had been a very demonstrative man who laughed easily and bought his daughters every imaginable luxury their hearts desired.

Watching him over the rim of her cup during dinner, she saw in Uncle Severus a reserved man with an aversion to foolishness and idiocy, who neither laughed a great deal nor spoiled them. Yet, she felt far surer of Uncle Severus than she ever had of her father. There had always been something rather flimsy about her father, like he was a paper cut-out of a man who could be blown by any breeze.

Uncle Severus was like a rock. Min had known her father would die for her, but Uncle Severus would try to keep her safe, would avenge any harm and he would make sure to live long enough to make the bastards pay. There was something comforting in knowing that rather than dying for one, there was someone willing to kill for you.

He was a very dangerous man and he loved her. She smiled at him as she sipped her tea. She loved him too and she was also quite willing to make the bastards pay. 

"What's that smile, Minuet?" He asked her in low tones that would frighten most people. He still made Tina jump a bit sometimes, but she was getting used to it.

"I was just thinking how unlike Father you are." She responded and he raised a brow at her.

"Indeed." It was an invitation to continue, but it wasn't something she was sure she could articulate.

"Father expected me to grow up to become someone's wife; you want me to do my best at whatever I choose." He nodded and she stopped. Tina had always been Daddy's little girl and Min didn't want to say anything bad about her father in front of the little girl.

"Your father wanted what he thought was best for you. I am not certain as to what that might be, so I mean to give you every opportunity to find it out for yourself." That was probably the most tactful thing she had ever heard him say and looking at Tina's contented expression as she ate, Min knew he had sensed the dangerous ground they were on and skirted it neatly.

"I want to go to university -- Oxford Arcane, if possible -- get a degree in Arithmancy and figure out why magic works the way it does." She announced her goals to him with some trepidation. Her father would have laughed. Uncle Severus merely looked thoughtful.

"There is plenty of money for university in your father's accounts. Your grades are good and I have no doubt that Professor Dumbledore will write the recommendation, so I don't see how it would be a problem for you to get the degree." He shrugged. "As for the rest, that will be up to you."

"I thought you wanted to marry Harry Potter?" Tina blurted out and Min flushed to the roots of her hair. Uncle Severus choked on his tea and Minuet hurriedly rushed to forestall any comments he might make.

"I was joking, Tina!" she kicked the younger girl under the table and Tina yelped.

"Fortina, that is not a safe ambition to discuss, joke or not." Severus scolded gently, but his brows were lowered and his face quite serious. "The rather dangerous men who killed your father must never hear even a whisper of such a thing." Fortina became still and very white.

"Will they kill us too?" The child asked wide-eyed and Minuet winced. Severus looked steadily at Tina.

"I will never let them hurt you, Tina." He replied and the low deadly tones made the hair stand up on the back of Min's neck.

He was, after all, a very dangerous man and he loved them. The two girls looked up at him with perfect trust and their own love plain to be seen. 

The next morning they rose early and Minuet made breakfast as usual. She wished that she didn't have to leave but she could see Tina's impatience to get back to their mother. Minuet loved her mother, but her grief was so heavy that Minuet felt suffocated by it. Her mother was angry lately and heart-broken and Minuet was just turned fifteen. It was too much for her to carry all the time.

Uncle Severus stomped down the staircase and Minuet silently handed him his coffee. He took it from her without a word, but he rested his hand on her shoulder for a brief moment and she realized he was sad to see her go. 

His mood had lightened since Professor Leblanc's letters had come but he was still slightly morose. 

"Christmas seems like a long time away." Minuet commented and got a grunt in reply. Uncle Severus looked up at her from over the rim of his mug.

"I will be bringing a surprise with me to Hogwarts when I return." His tone implied a not very happy surprise so she guessed it wouldn't be Professor Leblanc.

"Oh?" She enquired.

"My son should be born sometime in the next week." His flat tone made her mind race. Two months since she had seen Professor Leblanc and when last she had seen her there had been no evidence of pregnancy, therefore…

"Does she know?" There was no need to use names; they both knew what Minuet was talking about here.

"Yes. I had no choice and she understood." No choice? It had to be Voldemort's orders then, because Professor Dumbledore wouldn't order something like that.

"I look forward to meeting him." Minuet replied and gave him an encouraging smile. He relaxed infinitesimally and it occurred to her that she had the power now to hurt him badly with her disapproval and disgust. The understanding that came with that realization caused her to walk around the table and put her arms about him. "I love you Uncle Severus." She murmured gently. He had stiffened under her touch, but he didn't scold her, he merely patted her arm awkwardly.

"Yes, very well." The discomfort in his voice made her smile. 

Breakfast passed too quickly and they were packed and ready to go far too soon. Fortina was bouncing beside her and Uncle Severus had pokered up and was already withdrawing back into the shell he lived in.

Fortina threw herself at him and he lifted her in a single movement, holding the little girl, who wrapped her arms around him, kissed him on his cheek and whispered something that made him smile just the tiniest bit.

"Behave yourselves." He admonished as he summoned the Knight Bus for them. He set Fortina down and nodded briskly at Minuet who found herself tearing up.

"Take care of yourself." She returned and dragged Fortina onto the bus. Stan Surepike, who had chattered incessantly at them during the trip out, was staring at Professor Snape with deepest fear and said not a single thing as he took their luggage and their money.

Minuet and Fortina went to their seats and she looked out the window at the little cottage sitting on the Downs and was sad to see that he had already gone inside. With a bang and lurch, they were off home again.


End file.
